A lot of small business owners view social media as “free” advertising. Change your view on that, it might help. Sure, Facebook is a great way to make your product visible, but what happens when everyone stops looking?

Social media isn’t “free advertising”, it’s a way to involve your customers in your business.

How can you get more engagement on Facebook?

Post pictures

Not just sales ads, but photos of your team, your office or your facilities.

Post interesting photos that are relevant to your market or target age group. You can go “outside” the box here, share what you think your clients will be interested in.

Ask questions

Ask about a trending news story, or new product. It doesn’t have to be about your business, but it can be relevant.

It makes your company personable. Some times it can seem odd to put yourself out there like that, but it can spark conversation!

Pay attention to WHEN you’re posting

Facebook Insights has some awesome tools that will show you how many of your viewers saw each post, and even when most of your fans are on Facebook. For example, if most of your clients are online from 9 am – 10 am, don’t do all of your posting when you get home at 5pm.

You can see here that the peak times for this client are between 7 and 9pm

If you find that you don’t have the time during “peak” hours, Facebook also features a handy “scheduling” option for posts.

Repeat after me, “Quality over Quantity”

Do not bombard your fans with 50 posts per day. Not only does this reduce your likelihood of showing up in user’s news feeds, it can also have you blocked by users, which is the opposite of what you’re looking for.

According to recent studies, business that posted less than 3 times per day received more overall engagement than those who posted more.

Slow Down with The Cat Pics…

There is no perfect method of engaging your fans on Facebook. You may find that what works for someone else, will not work for you. It’s trial and error, so take a few days this week to try some of these different posts to see which of them may work better for your small business.